


Discerning the Tides of Fate Through Apophenia of Data

by Necrowmancer



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, F/M, Gen, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 08:13:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8320522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Necrowmancer/pseuds/Necrowmancer
Summary: The world has changed, and with it the ways of old have been long forgotten. Cast aside are the greater powers of the world, and as man and mer move away from tradition and their gods, the very fabrics of their reality collapse. Greater beings leave their crumbling realms outside of Nirn to walk the mortal realm in the weakened guise of mortals, adjusting to new life in a age where technology has far surpassed magic and a modern, technology-based world is built. Gods become myths. Daedric Princes become rumor. A Breton journalist finds herself enamored by tales of old, and on one fateful exploration she comes across the find of a lifetime: the stasis form of the Prince of Fate. Suddenly awoken from his long sleep, Hermaeus Mora is flung into a very unfamiliar world at the side of a very giddy writer, and undertakes the slow process of understanding what it means to be human.





	1. Black Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ideas got passed around while working on "Tongues" so I am also working on this as well now. Self indulgent fictions I might as well post ye. Because often times I get stuck on one thing and just want to do something else.  
> But real talk TES's cosmology is really weird I'm not going to think about it too hard. It's a AU. I'm just going to leave it at that weeps-

 

It was inevitable for things to change someday. Inventions took greater turns. Dwemer artifacts meticulously studied, improved, expanded. Surpassed. Magic began to fade out. Old was became forgotten. The gods were cast aside one by one as many of their realms became more and more irrelevant. 

The first effects on the outer planes did not happen immediately. Most of it went unnoticed, but a few or the more detailed-orientated noticed. The more they were forgotten, the more the world changed, the more the cracks began to show. Some turned and left their realms to the mortal plane, abandoning their millennium old homes. Others hung on to the very end. 

Millennium upon millennium of knowledge had been gathered in the recides of Apocrypha. Thousands of years of knowledge slipped into the oily blackness and void like swaths of cliff at the edge of the ocean. No matter the endless amount of tendrils he summoned up, he could not save all of it. Many of the others had long abandoned their realms by that point. They had turned to Nirn, assumed a mortal-like form, forgotten about and lost to esoteric knowledge and rumor. Their days of power, of summoning, of cults were long gone. Even the arrogant like Molag Bal had already left. Many eyes narrowed as Hermaeus Mora pulled a tentacle full of books through a hastily made portal, shoveling them into the dusky enclosure of a long abandoned building. Another platform collapsed, oily water sloshing before it too seemed to drain into the void itself.

Hundreds of thousands of lifetimes gone to waste. Information, knowledge, stories lost forever. It  _ pained  _ him. The tides of time and fate were faltering, more and more difficult to read and scry, even for the daedra of fate himself. His knowledge was slipping with the destruction of his plane. He was furious, but he could do nothing to stop it. This was beyond even his control, beyond anyone’s control.

How? How could this possibly even  _ happen?  _ Mora could not understand it, in his infinite wisdom and knowledge. Nirn existed inside bubbles of magical realms, and now they were crumbling out of existence. The magical world was coming to an end. Atherium and Oblivion themselves were unraveling at the seams. The god’s worlds rippled out of existence. Where Nirn was falling into, and how it had not been torn apart in the process, was unknown.

There as a tug on Apocrypha that wasn’t caused by Oblivion’s general collapse.

“Hermaeus Mora. You must  _ leave _ .”

The largest eye of the mass turned to view his ‘sibling’. Mephala narrowed her eyes at the eldritch being.

“Do you  _ think  _ I would just… abandon… my collection…?” he hissed, tentacles coiling around another stack of books before shuffling it through the portal.

“Do you value it over  _ yourself? _ ”

“I will leave when I see fit,” Mora replied to the spider-like daedra.

“I thought you might be wiser than that,” she replied, and as quickly as she appeared she disappeared. 

The plane shifted. More of it crumbled away. He hissed, scrambling to drag out what he could. So much was lost. 

He could not stay any longer. Darkness swallowed all of Oblivion. Hermaeus Mora finally backed out of his realm with reluctance. The outer planes faded away. There was disorienting feeling of being sucked to somewhere else, then the feeling of being torn to pieces. A mortal form. The Daedric Princes never really walked the mortal plane. The lesser Daedra couldn’t. Those without enough power to make the last ditch effort to manifest themselves on the mortal plane were lost to… it was unknown where, really.

Unconsciously he scrambled for a form. The Prince never took on a human form. What would he even look like? 

Nirn tore at his immortal, incomprehensible form. Nirn could not truly understand what he, or any of the other princes were. Mortal form. Mortality. Human-ness. A concept beyond him. But to survive, Nirn and the prince had to meet somewhere in the middle. Mortality. Daedra. 

A smoldering, warping, fluctuating comet. The mortal world came rushing in around him. Pin pricks, whirling, deafening noise and unbearable silence. Twisting, grasping for understanding, the feeling of being hit by a far larger force.

Then darkness.


	2. She's Out Of Her Mind

Imogen tapped her index finger on mouse, squinting her eyes in thought as she stared at the computer screen. She had to make sure everything was right, perfect, set up. This was the best lead she had ever gotten and she did not want to mess up her chance.

The breton pressed her feet against the wall before pushing herself back in her office chair to the table behind her.

“How are the tapes and cameras?” She asked, throwing a look over the back of her chair at the Altmer on the other side of the table.

The other woman slapped the side of a old video camera closed. “You have access to better equipment and this is what we’re using?” She asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow.

Imogen threw the blond a look. “Because I want to check out work cameras to trespass with,” she remarked.

Cirre rolled her eyes, setting the camera down in front of her. “All the batteries should be changed and all the tapes have been wiped and checked, along with the whole of what…” she pushed a pile of tapes aside, “ _one?_ SD card?” She held it up, turning the tiny chip in her hand before throwing Imogen a look of her own. “Is it really too expensive for you to at least buy another one of these?”

Imogen pulled herself back to the computer, checking a few tabs. “If this goes well, I will,” she said, eyes scanning the screen.

Cirre set the chip back down, before reaching down to pick up a heavy duty bag to pack the cameras into. “So what’s the news. We doing this tonight?”

Imogen scrolled down a page, reading comments left on her blog before tabbing back to the map. “I think so. Weather looks like it should hold up, and if i’m reading things right and have been told right,” she tabbed back to the blog again, opening up messages to scroll to one she had highlighted, “then we _should_ be able to get in and out quietly.”

The Altmer put the one up to date camera into its casing before adding it to her bag. “So what’s the plan?”

“There should be a lot a little ways away we can park in that won’t look too suspicious. From there we have…” she eyed the map for a second, “a maybe 15 minute walk? To the fence line.”

“Are we going to actually _break_ in?” Cirre moaned.

Imogen shrugged. “We’re trespassing Cirre. I don’t think the fence is electric or is barbed at the top, so we can probably just climb it. The place really isn’t _that_ secure. I mean, it’s kind of a dump really. People are saying there’s only ever a few guards around to keep the bums out, you know? It’s not like some high tech super secret military base,” she exaggerated.

Cirre moved the bag to the table, moving to grab the flashlights. “What was this place to begin with?” She asked, furrowing her brow.

Imogen shrugged, tabbing over again. “Storage. Housed a factory for a little while, went under, was bought out as storage, went under again. It’s been abandoned for like 7 years now. Kind of out of the way, run down. Nobody’s bought the property yet. Not really a ideal place,” she said. “I think it’d probably cost more to tear down the building or renovate it then it’d be worth right now.”

The elf nodded, double checking the bags before clapping her hands together. “Well, that should be everything packed then. Flashlights, cameras, batteries, charger, even the bolt cutters.”

Imogen flashed her friend a bright grin. “You ready for this?”

Cirre tried not to smile, but couldn’t help it. “You know how long it’s been since i’ve really been excited to go out like this? You bet i’m ready.”

Imogen wiggled in her seat, before hopping up. She moved to grab her things, before snapping her fingers. She turned back to her computer, bringing the map back up as well as a few annotated ones before hitting print. “Let’s not forget these,” she said with a nod of her head, before she hurried to get her things. The woman grabbed her jacket, her scarf, and her wool hat. “Shovel?”

Cirre moved over to grab the brand new tool from its resting place against the wall. “Check.”

“Microphone?”

The Altmer checked the bag. “Check.”

“Walkie Talkies?”

“We have phones Imogen-”

“We’ll be _underground_ ,” Imogen reminded her friend, shaking a finger.

Cirre rolled her eyes, sorting through the bag. “Also check then.”

Imogen’s grin widened. “Let’s get going then.”

 

They waited to turn on their flashlights until they had neared the building, thankful the distance between the fence and their destination was largely unobstructed. The downside of that meant they had no cover. As Imogen had been informed, only two guards were present on the property, and neither seemed to _really_ be paying that much attention. The two loitered by their main post at the entry gate, chatting to one another. Imogen and Cirre couldn’t complain. Little else was around; the storage building was out in a quieter part of Whiterun, away from the crowded and busy city. Few people were around, and fewer paid any attention to the pair that carefully climbed the fence and scurried towards the building.

The two moved to the opposite side from the guards before Imogen pulled out the map and a small pocket sized flashlight. Cirre pulled out one of the camera’s starting it up.

“So what’s the plan?” Cirre asked.

Imogen glanced up at her friend, smirking. “Hey, we’re not in yet,” she whinned.

“Documentation Imogen. Always have the camera rolling. You should know that you’re the journalist for god’s sake,” Cirre teased, grinning back.

“Fine,” Imogen said, feigning exasperation with a slight tilt of her head. She looked back to the map. “There should be a door back over here. Hopefully it’s unlocked or locked with something we can chop off,” she said, looking over her shoulder to locate what she was talking about.

Cirre moved the camera to point it in the direction Imogen was looking. “Lead the way.”

Imogen double checked their surroundings before heading along the wall. Sure enough, there was a door, but unfortunately it had a regular lock. Imogen tried the handle, giving it a firm jiggle before cursing under her breath. “Nope.”

Cirre lowered the camera off of her shoulder, holding it out for Imogen to take. The shorter woman took it, awkwardly moving it to film Cirre as her companion eyed the lock. Cirre threw a look over her shoulder, before turning and giving the door a very firm kick. The piece of wood shuddered, and to Imogen’s surprise it opened. She gave Cirre a surprised look.

“It’s like a shed door. Sometimes you just gotta give it a little push,” Cirre said, taking the camera back.

Imogen snorted, before peering inside. It was dark, but looked like it hadn’t been touched in ages. She very carefully shone her flashlight around after scanning the darkness for any flashing lights. No cameras. “Score. Let’s get going,” she said, motioning for Cirre to follow.

Once inside with the door closed, Imogen set her bag down on the ground and pulled the shovel off of her back. She produced a small lamp, turning it on before setting it down behind the bag. They had carefully huddled behind a pillar, hoping the structure would hide some of the light. The only windows in the building were largely the ones lining the very highest points in the walls, but Imogen didn’t want to run the risk of alerting the guards. She pulled out the microphone, setting it up and clipping it to the edge of her scarf. Cirre helped her get set up, before Imogen smoothed the maps out on the ground.

“Okay, so,” she tapped a pencil against one of the annotated maps. “If my research is correct, we’re looking at 5, maybe 10 feet between the ground floor here and probably the ceiling of the chamber. Maybe a tunnel. I don’t know. Nothing I could find told me really what it is we’re digging into,” she said, rubbing her mouth.

“So how are we getting down there? Ground’s cement here. Is it  better to go outside and dig in the dirt?” Cirre asked, shifting the camera on her shoulder.

Imogen shook her head. “No. I think there’s a sort of drainage area in the back that we might be able to use to get a little lower,” she said, shifting to one of the other maps.

“Do you think that’s close enough? I mean, I feel like the construction workers would have noticed if they had dug something up.”

Imogen shrugged. “I don’t know either but they’re always finding crazy stuff you know.” She straightened herself out, grabbing the shovel and the bolt cutters. “Only one way to find out though.”

Cirre followed her companion to the back of the room, carefully stepping over broken glass and crumbling bits of god knew what that had been left in the building. Imogen scanned the back section of the building with her flashlight until it fell on a very rusty grate in the ground.

“Perfect,” she said, picking up her pace to hurry over to it. The grate was decent sized, big enough for her to fit down. She shined the flashlight cautiously down into the hole, before carefully kneeling down to pry the cover off. The breton let out a grunt when she found it was bolted down.

“Cirre, can you grab me the wrench?” She asked, shining the flashlight down it again.

Cirre rolled her eyes, moving back to kick the bag over towards Imogen. “Just take the whole thing. I’m not even sure if you can get those off. They’re rusted pretty badly,” she observed.

Imogen dug around in the tool bag for her target, before finding it and trying to line it up with the nuts that had practically merged with the bolts and metal around them. “Who makes drainage gates out of just regular iron,” she grumbled, trying her hardest to get one of the bolts to turn.

“Or bolts it down,” Cirre added, raising one eyebrow. “Come to think of it, that’s a little weird.”

Imogen shrugged, grabbing a hammer out of the bag. She gave the bolt a few hits, knocking chunks of rust off of it before trying the wrench again. With luck, she managed to pry the piece of corroded metal off. The woman let out a sigh of relief, before repeating the process with the remaining bolts. Once finished, she finally pried the gate up and off of the hole, shoving it to the side.

Cirre leaned over, tilting the camera to look down the hole. “Is that rat shit-”

“Probably,” Imogen interrupted. She dug around for gloves and a face mask, donning the items before unceremoniously clambering down into the hole.

Cirre made a face. “We’re going to get so sick at this rate Imogen,” she groaned, setting the camera down to find a mask and gloves of her own before following her companion.

They were both relieved that the grate dropped into a decently sized tunnel, tall enough for both of them to be able to walk in as long as the leaned over. It was better then crouching and infinitely more preferable to _crawling._

Imogen checked one of her maps that she had crudely drawn the potential drainage map on. “The tunnel should lead down to one of the nearby rivers. We need to head about 100 feet ahead before we _should_ be in a good spot to dig,” she said, tucking the map back into her jacket before proceeding.

“Still made out of concrete and stone here Imogen-” Cirre warned, making a face as they walked through the dusky, dirty tunnels. At least they were dry.

“And you don’t think I haven’t noticed?” Imogen asked, looking back at Cirre.

Cirre gave a guilty shrug. “Look, you’re not always the most… _observant_.”

Imogen looked offended. “I am _perfectly_ observant! That’s why I have my job, i’ll have you know,” she gasped, putting a hand playfully on her chest.

“I’m just saying,” Cirre replied.

A handful of rats scampered out of the way as the two progressed. Imogen shined her flashlight down the tunnel, thankful she didn’t see any signs of Skeevers. Skeevers would have been an actual problem.

“This should be about the spot then,” Cirre said, eyeing the tunnel around them.

Imogen nodded, crouching down. The bottom of the tunnel was made up of slabs of stone. She eyed the corners, before using the shovel to help give her leverage to pry one up. The stone came loose with a tumble of rat poop, and she pushed the shovel under it to prop it up. Cirre backed up so she could shove the stone where she had previously been standing. The slab shattered in half when Imogen let it fall, but they didn’t care. The breton shoved the broken rock out of the way, before moving to get the next slab of stone on the other side out of the way.

“That should be enough to dig down with,” Imogen said, surveying the dirt before she plunged the shovel into it.

“I hope it isn’t too deep,” Cirre said, glancing back up the tunnel.

“Same,” Imogen grunted, using her foot to push the shovel deeper before she pulled it up.

 

The tunnel made the work slow. Imogen and Cirre took turns digging, shoving the dirt to the distant end of the tunnel as they worked. Three hours of work passed before the dirt below suddenly crumbled, and gave out into a hole.

Imogen’s eyes lit up, looking up to her camera holding companion. She quickly crouched down by the collapsed part of the hole, shining her flashlight down below. The drop was maybe 6 feet and into a small room. “This is it I think,” she said.

Cirre could hardly contain her own excitement. “I can’t believe there really is something down here. I don’t even care what’s down there this is so cool on it’s own,” she almost squealed, moving to kick the bag of repelling gear towards Imogen. Imogen set up the gear into part of the wall, giving it a few tugs and tests before she looked to Cirre.

“Let’s go.”


	3. Fake It

The small room had one been part of something bigger, but it had appeared that much of it had collapsed long, long again. Not a single sign of life lingered in the ruins below, implying that it had been sealed off for many years.

Imogen shoved her orange-red hair out of her face, fixing up her outfit before turning to face the camera. Cirre gave her a thumbs up.

“This is Imogen Welch, for Lost Vestiges. I have just uncovered a ruin that is supposedly the reported sight of a strange anomaly seen falling from the sky over 800 years ago. My research has shown that, supposedly, there is a chamber down here that belonged to an ancient cult. And tonight, i’m here to investigate,” she said, trying her best to present professionally and not let her excitement get in the way. “What you are seeing is unedited and factual. I don’t know what I will find ahead of me, but the camera won’t be turning off. Let’s go.”

Cirre gave her a thumbs up again, and Imogen took a deep breath. The breton held up her flashlight, before moving forward towards the stairwell that descended before them.

“It doesn’t look like anyone has been down here in a long time. The previous room we were in looked like it might have been apart of something bigger at one point, but ceiling collapsed and hasn’t left us anything to get around,” Imogen said as she examined the stairwell. “This looks stable enough, but please, don’t  try this at home. These ruins are very unstable.” Very cautiously, Imogen edged forward. “Some water used to leak down here from the drainage pipe we entered through, so much of this ruin is looking at water damage. Luckily, a lot of it looks to be made of stone,” she mused, making her way down the stairs.

Cirre shifted the camera to show the walls. “The pipes above didn’t look like they’ve had water in a good while, so we should be okay from that,” she added, before shifting the view back to Imogen.

“Doesn’t mean we might not hit a water table or reservoir,” Imogen mentioned, sweeping the flashlight beam back and forth across the stairs as they moved. “It looks like it’s leveling out down here though,” she said, leaning forward to get a better look. Sure enough, the stairs ended to a short stretch of flat stone, before leading up to a door. Imogen let out a soft gasp, picking up her pace to reach the door. She looked back at the camera. “Are you seeing this?” she asked, pointing.

Cirre shifted the camera to focus on the door, carefully adjusting it to focus in.

The door was ancient, made of a blackened metal. It was worn and damaged, but through that the crest in the door remained. Imogen very carefully motioned to the crest, tracing her finger a few inches from the door around the circle and the strange creature that lay at the center.

“This was the emblem used by ancient cults to refer to their god. Um, if I remember right and my research is correct, this is the symbol for the Woodland Man, or more commonly known here in ancient Skyrim lore as Herma-Mora. According to legend, this god was a keeper of knowledge and could even see people’s fate,” she said. She motioned to the tentacles and claws that made up the inner diagram. “He was said to take up the form of a… well, formless mass of tentacles and pincers, and eyes. If we’re lucky, whatever is past this will hold a lot of secrets.” She took out her camera to get a few good shots of the door and the symbol, before returning it to her side.

With that, Imogen took a deep breath. Very carefully she pushed on the door. It didn’t budge. She cursed under her breath, before giving it a bit more of a shove. The door screeched on its hinges, scraping across the ground. Imogen and Cirre winced as the sound echoed in the small stone tunnel. Imogen carefully peered in once the gap had become wide enough for the two of them to fit in. Her eyes widened as the beam from the flashlight landed on piles and piles of _books._

Imogen stepped in, shining her flashlight over the contents of the room. Books stacked as far as she could see. The room was far bigger than she had imagined; bigger than even the storage building that lay above. Heaps of books towered above her head in places, along with piles upon piles of scrolls. The tomes were ancient, though she could still tell that some were significantly older than others. They remained intact, but the damage was apparent.

Very gingerly the two skirted through the maze of book piles. “I want to look at these, but i’m so afraid to touch them,” Imogen whispered, as if her very voice would damage them. She looked back to Cirre and the camera. “Some of these are in languages I don’t even recognize. This… this is a bigger find then I was imagining,” she said, dumbfounded.

Cirre panned the camera around the, nodding in agreement. “Do you think the cultists gathered all of this down here for their god?” She asked, zooming in on the spines of some of the books.

“Must have been,” Imogen replied, walking a bit further ahead. She paused though, furrowing her brow. Cirre glanced to her.

“Is something wrong?” Cirre asked, catching up.

Imogen squinted, standing on her tiptoes to get a look over some of the books. “I’m going to turn my flashlight off for a second,” she announced, flipping the switch on the object’s handle. The room felt to darkness, lit only by the screen of the camera… and something else. Once Imogen’s eyes had adjusted better to the darkness, she realized that she really _was_ seeing light from somewhere else in the room. Silently she motioned to Cirre to the faint green glow from the far side of the room.

Cirre brought one hand up to rub her mouth, focusing her camera on the spot. “What _is_ that?” Cirre whispered.

“I don’t know, but…” Imogen tried to mark the location in her head, before she flipped the light back on. She squinted at the sudden brightness again, before turning to carefully make her way over.

“Imogen, be careful…” Cirre warned, following a few steps behind her. “We don’t know what that _is._ Stuff shouldn’t be _glowing_ down here.”

Imogen gingerly stepped over a heap of scrolls. “I’m not just going to _leave_ it, Cirre. We’re down here to discover. If I was just going to shy away from everything we wouldn’t have made it over that fence,” she said, sweeping her flashlight to try to find a path.

Cirre sighed, biting her lower lip. Imogen slowed as she approached a circle of books that had clearly been knocked over at some point. “This must be it…” she mumbled. She looked to Cirre with a deep breath, before stepping around the heap. Her light fell on a strange object.

Cocoon-like was her best description of what lay before her. It was a green-black, gently pulsating a green light from under oily and crystallite surface. Black scrawling slowly traversed the surface like lines of ants. The ground around it was a crater, littered with the destroyed remains of books. Very faintly inside the object Imogen could make out a humanoid shape.

She froze up where she stood, feeling a shiver roll down her spine.

“Hey, Imogen…” Cirre said slowly, zooming the camera in on the object in front of them. “I don’t like this…”

Imogen tried to bundle up her wits. She edged forward, pulling her camera in front of her.

“Be careful…” Cirre warned as her friend started to snap photos. Imogen skirted around the edge of the crater, compiling shot after shot.

“This must have been what people saw that fell out of the sky,” Imogen said, zooming the camera in on the text on the surface. “I think some of this writing is in the demon tongue. There’s something inside of it too, but I can’t tell _what.”_

Cirre didn’t move from where she stood, recording as well. “I have a really bad feeling about this-” she paused, watching Imogen skirt _forward._ “Imogen… Imogen no. Don’t you dare.”

Imogen looked up at the camera, pausing a few feet into the crater. “For science, and discovery. Don’t do this,” she said.

“Imogen don’t touch it-”

Imogen crouched up next to it. She looked over the cocoon. Whatever was in it, it was definitely humanoid. She shined the flashlight over it to see if it would react with brighter light, but it did not change. She got a few more good close up shots of it, before extending a hand.

Her fingers came into contact with the cocoon’s surface. It was cool, but not _cold_ like she had been expecting. Imogen let out a sharp inhale as electricity jolted into her fingertips, and she quickly withdrew her hand.

“Imogen, are you alright!?” Cirre exclaimed. Imogen looked up at her to reply, but cocoon _reacted_.

Things jolted back, and his eyes snapped open as his body gave a violent jerk. His heart gave a beat, and the world rushed back into perspective. Unfamiliar sensations wracked at every part of his body. His _body._ A hand reached out, pushing at the cocoon as it crumbled. Air. Cold. He lurched upwards, before keeling over to his side. He threw up. A lot. Lungs full and stomach full of black, slimy ooze. The air assaulted his lungs, causing him to throw up more oil. He gripped his _stomach_ . Someone spoke. The noise was _sharp_ and he flinched, before turning to look. A light. A very bright light. He brought his hand up to shield his eyes, wincing and looking away.

Imogen stumbled back, falling on her back as she pointed the flashlight in terror at what had just emerged from the cocoon. Cirre rushed to her side, gripping her friend’s coat to drag her back. Imogen saw him flinch, and she move the flashlight out of his face. Both parties froze for a second.

He gave ragged breaths, trying to collect his thoughts. Where was he? What was going on? Why did he feel so… strange? He struggled to move, toppling over the remains of the cocoon before struggling to… stand? Stand. Why was he standing? His legs shook, and gave out under him rather quickly. He fell back into the crater. Rocks and dirt bit at his skin. He stopped moving, just trying to take things one step at a time now since rushing didn’t seem to be going his way.

Imogen felt her heart pound in her chest, and she gripped the flashlight in a deathgrip. She kept the light off of the naked man, and motioned for Cirre to turn off the camera. Cirre gave Imogen a look.

He was tall, of a average build. His skin was a dusky, dull olive, with mid back length black hair that now fell in front of a very angular face. His ears were pointed, which made Imogen wonder if he was some sort of mer.

With a deep breath, Imogen pushed herself up.

“What are you doing?” Cirre hissed.

Imogen grabbed the shovel, gripping it tightly in her free hand. She moved the light closer to the strange being, edging closer to him.

“Imogen-”

Imogen paused a few feet away from him, trembling as she held the shovel.

His eyes gazed up to her, squinting from the light. Gold. His eyes were _gold,_ with a horrifying split pupil in each eye. His head tilted, and Imogen caught a flash of sharp white teeth as he let out a pained breath. His head _pounded._ He closed his eyes, before leaning forward to grip his head.

Imogen closed her eyes tightly for a second, before setting the shovel aside as carefully as she could. She gently shrugged off her coat, before moving it to set it on the man’s shoulders. He flinched at the sudden contact, but did not shove the coat off. Very slowly, Imogen crouched down beside him, keeping the light away from his eyes.

“What’s your name?” She asked, keeping her tone low.

Cirre filmed anxiously, edging towards the shovel just in case this took a horror movie turn.

His name. His fingertips pressed into his temples, into his scalp. A dark tongue extended from his mouth, wetting his lips before he tried to speak. “ _Mora.”_ It sounded strange coming from his mouth. His _mouth._ It was his voice, but it was from _something._ The sound reverberated in his throat, in his chest. An unusual sensation. His throat felt dry speaking it, and the word carried a rhasp with it alongside the usual low, drawling lisp.

 _There was no way._ Imogen looked back at Cirre with wide eyes. Cirre shook her head, picking up the shovel with one hand. “Imogen, get _back._ This is bad. This was a bad idea…”

Imogen looked back to the being in front of her. “Are you the Woodland Man?” She asked in a whisper.

The inhuman eyes came to look at Imogen again, surveying her features this time with unnerving intensity. His brow furrowed a bit, eyes adjusting for a moment before he raised a hand up slightly.

Imogen shrieked and lurched back as a singular black tentacle extended from his wrist. The sudden loud noise made him flinch back and cover his ears, tentacle dispersing into a murky mist.

Cirre grabbed Imogen and started to pull her back in the way they had come. “We’re getting out of here-”

Imogen wiggled out of Cirre’s grasp, looking to her as her chest rose and fell. “We _can’t,_ Cirre.”

Imogen looked to the man on the ground. He was gripping his head again, giving a few sharp breaths. She looked back to Cirre.

“Do you know who that is?” She whispered to her friend.

Cirre gave her a warning glare. “First of all, no. There’s no way. Okay I get it we’re in deep in this legend shit but _there’s no way._ Second of all, _no._ No, we’re not tangling with that if that _is_ what it is. We need to get out of here before things head south,” she hissed through her teeth.

“We can’t just leave him-”

Cirre raised her index finger in front of Imogen’s face. “Yes we can. Remember horror movies?”

Imogen looked over her shoulder again at _Mora._ “Cirre-”

“No, not this time,” she grabbed Imogen again by her shirt, pulling her. “Let’s get out of here. I really, _really_ don’t wanna die in some nondescript pit under drainage pipes."

Imogen broke away again, trying to give the Altmer the firmest look she could manage. She headed back towards the man. Cirre really wanted to hit her.

Imogen crouched down by him again, biting her lip hard before she carefully tried to put her hands on his wrists. He flinched away again, looking at her like a frightened animal. “I’m not going to hurt you. Let’s get you out of here,” she whispered. His gaze shifted between Imogen and Cirre, before he gave a slight nod of understanding.

Everything was an overwhelming blur. Things seemed too sharp while other things were painfully dull, numb. His head pounded and thoughts came through jumbled, a frightening event he was unfamiliar with. How he had gotten there, what was going on, why he was like this, was hard to pick out amongst everything.

Imogen slowly helped him to his feet, awkwardly trying not to look at his naked visage. He brought a hand up to cover his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose as he did so.

Carefully, Imogen lead him back up the stairs. His movements were painfully slow, unsure. Cirre reluctantly handed the camera off to Imogen finally, moving to support the man as he stumbled to make it up the first few stairs. She half expected for him to just kill her, but to her surprise the dark skinned creature simply allowed her to support him.

Getting him out of the pipe and out of the storage room was difficult. Past that, they had to gingerly clear the floor so he wouldn’t step on glass or metal that littered the storage room floor. The fence provided another obstacle, which Imogen reluctantly used her bolt cutters to fix.

He did not say a word the entire time. Despite the fact that both agreed it was a bad, bad idea, Imogen and Cirre split once they were far enough away from the storage that they could wait and feel relatively safe from being spotted. Imogen headed back to the lot for her car while Cirre waited with the mysterious man. He did not do anything while they waited. He sat there, using Imogen’s jacket to shield his eyes from the streetlight.

The ride back to Imogen’s was _frightening._ What was he in? What was going on? The passing lamps made his head _ache._ He hid under Imogen’s jacket still, taking deep breaths as he tried to collect himself. Why was he so… _uncollected?_ He was _never_ like this, not in the slightest.

Cirre and Imogen could not stop glancing back at the stranger in the back seat. They did not converse. When they reached her apartment, they carefully moved the man inside.

He did not care if they wanted to talk, or what they wanted at all. Imogen had a spare bedroom. He fell asleep in it immediately once he knew it was there.

 

“So,” Cirre said, leaning to look out of Imogen’s bedroom doorway. She brought a hand up to rub the bottom of her chin.

Imogen glanced up at Cirre from spot on her bed, laptop nestled before her.

Cirre glanced to her friend. “...you’re just going to let a strange naked man we found in a cocoon underground while trespassing sleep in your house?”

Imogen rolled her eyes. “Yes, until I can… I don’t know, figure out what to do about this.” She returned to typing, furiously trying to pull up any and all possible information about what she presumed was currently asleep in the room over.

Cirre rubbed her face, glancing out again. “You know this can only end badly right?”

Imogen shrugged, fingers dancing across the keys as she searched pages upon pages of data. “It might not.”

“Remember the horror movie thing?”

Imogen paused in typing, giving her elf friend a skeptical look. “Things like that only happen because the writers want it to. This is real life Cirre.”

Cirre raised her arms up. “Okay so let me get this straight. You think that that man is some sort of _god._ A god known for being a giant tentacle monster. With cults. And bad shit. Please explain to me how this _isn’t_ and _couldn’t_ go wrong?”

Imogen sighed, rubbing one eye with her hand tiredly. Her eyes wandered to the time in the corner of the screen. 4:32 am. She felt grateful they had decided to do this Friday night and not later. “If something starts going downhill, i’ll… I don’t know, call the police I guess?”

“How are you going to explain this to them? Admit we trespassed?” Cirre cried.

“I mean it wouldn’t be hard to also say he’s some weird bum that passed by. Look, let’s just take this one step at a time,” she said, raising her hands up to rub her own temples.

Cirre sighed, copying the motion herself before she moved to take a seat on the edge of the bed. “Well, i’m not leaving until I can at least feel _vaguely_ safe about leaving you here with that thing.”

Imogen raised an eyebrow. “So, never?”

Cirre rolled her eyes. “You’re not taking this _seriously,_ Imogen.”

The breton returned to her research. “You’re going to have to sleep on the couch then,” she said.

“Yeah, since you gave him the spare room.”

Imogen could tell Cirre was at least being playful about that. She managed a tired smirk and shook her head. “You’re just jealous.”

Cirre gave Imogen a light shove, getting off of her bed before shuffling through the woman’s closet for a spare set of blankets and pillows. “I’m going to get some sleep. When you want to hit the hay, hit me up alright? One of us should stay awake for now.”

Imogen nodded. “Alright. I’ll keep an eye out.”

Cirre let out a sigh of relief. “Good. I really don’t want to be pulled apart by that thing. Goodnight, you crazy woman,” Cirre said, before making her way into the living room.

Imogen ran a hand through her fiery hair. What had she gotten herself into…?


	4. Bad Blood

He did not wake up until 2 in the afternoon. His mouth was dry. His stomach hurt. He felt uncomfortable. The pain had not fully died down in his head, but the rumbling of his stomach and the cracking of his throat compelled him to get up. Strange. 

Mora shifted, feeling the sheets brush against his skin. His eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the light that was filtering in through the window and a layer of orange-red curtains. There was soft chattering coming from outside of the room. His gaze rested on the cabinet across from him. Unfamiliar. He shifted, letting out a long, drawn out exhale before he finally sat up. Muscles shifted under his skin. Bones creaked. His long hair fell and bounced around his face. He wanted to contemplate on what was going on, recall why he had gotten there, but he was  _ hungry.  _ Was that what this was? Must have been. He shifted out of bed, letting his feet gently touch the carpeted ground. He sat on the edge for a moment, trying to focus all of his current mental capacity to just make it out of the room. He stood very slowly, making sure he had his balance before he took a step. And another. Walking. Was it really that difficult? Why was he walking?

He felt  _ stiff.  _ He brushed past the open doorway, ears twitching at the sound of talking. The room before him was absolutely  _ alien.  _ He struggled not to pay it any mind, following the sound to one of the neighboring rooms.

Two woman were in the kitchen. One he recognized vaguely as a breton, with pale skin and red hair. She sat at the table, back turned to the doorway he stood in. She was focused on the other, a Altmer with gold skin, green eyes, blond hair. Tall. Muscled. She had a cup in her hand of some warm, very aromatic liquid. She was the one to notice him first, mid sip.

Cirre spat out her mouthful of coffee, only narrowly missing Imogen. Imogen whirled to look at Mora, before just as quickly turning away. Cirre covered her mouth, trying not to both laugh and feel heinously embarrassed at the same time. The absolutely stark naked man furrowed his brow at the two, comprehension of what was going on feeling like molasses. Why was he so  _ lethargic?  _

Cirre made a slight motion to him, turning to look away. “You’re. Uh. Naked. Sir.”

The Daedric Prince blinked his golden eyes, taking another awkward moment to recall that this was, in fact, a  _ problem  _ for mortals. Oh. He shifted for a moment. Did he  _ care?  _ Imogen gave Cirre a awkward look, before getting up and very, very carefully moving past him. He idly watched her until she came back with a blanket, holding it out to him without looking at him. Mora was tempted to roll his eyes, but he took the blanket and draped it over his shoulders like a makeshift cloak. 

“Erm. Can I uh. Get anything for you?” Imogen asked, moving back to stand beside Cirre. 

He glanced the two over, before his eyes scanned the room. He moved a chair, pulling it out so he could sit down. Standing was still… uncomfortable. He took a moment to speak, feeling the dryness of his  mouth. “Food. Drink.” Yes. That was what he needed.  _ Needed.  _ What a strange concept.

The two women threw each other looks, before Imogen turned to the refrigerator. “Uh, is… eggs and toast okay?” What the hell would a eldritch being even  _ want  _ to eat that she could cook?

Hermaeus Mora eyed the coffee pot, not really paying attention to Imogen. “Yes.” It was short and curt. 

Imogen had dealt with a lot of different people, and a lot of strange people. But this man was taking the cake with ease. She raised her brows at Cirre before turning to get a pair of eggs out of the fridge. She shuffled past Cirre to the stove, turning it on. How did he even want his eggs-

Cirre glanced between Mora and the pot of coffee, before moving to pour him a cup. She set it on the table, pushing it towards him. “It’s coffee. It’s hot-”

He did not heed her warning and just took a sip. He recoiled and spat it out.  _ Hot.  _ He felt stupid.

“See. Your coffee sucks,” Imogen commented, settling with scrambled eggs.

Cirre rolled her eyes and went to grab some paper towels as the man winced. “I told you it was hot,” she grumbled, tossing a stack of the towels on the spill.

Mora made a face, scraping his scalded tongue against his sharp teeth. How  _ embarrassing.  _ He raised a eyebrow at Cirre, resting the cup on the table until it had cooled down more. No more with that mistake. 

Cirre scooted Imogen out of the way to toss the paper towels in the trash, glancing to her friend. “You sure this is a god? He doesn’t seem to bright,” she whispered lowly.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, inhaling slowly. “I can  _ hear  _ you,” he managed to grumble, narrowing his eyes at the two women. 

Imogen threw Cirre a look, scraping the spatula against the pan. Cirre sighed and moved to lean back against the counter, pressing her palms into the edge of it. “So. Are you  _ really  _ a god?”

Hermaeus Mora rubbed his brow. He didn’t want to go over this right now. Everything still hurt; moreso now that he had burnt his stupid mortal mouth. Why the  _ hell  _ was he in this form? He hated it, whatever the reason. He rested one elbow on the table, moving to rub his temple as he rested his head against his hand. He pushed his long black hair out of his face with his other hand when it fell in front of his very limited gaze. “What I  _ am  _ is the Daedric Prince of Knowledge, the Gardener of Men, the Lord of Secrets. I have many titles, which I have no doubt you mortals have forgotten,” he grunted, scanning the room. A lot of time had passed since he last could recall. 

“Well he at certainly has a god complex,” Cirre muttered.

Mora narrowed his eyes, digging his nails into the side of his head. “Would you  _ stop talking? _ You make my head hurt  _ more,”  _ he hissed, bringing his face to push into the palms of his hands. Why would this headache not go away-

Imogen made a ‘o’ with her mouth, waving one hand around at Cirre in amusement. Cirre rolled her eyes, pushing herself away from the counter. She moved to sit down in another seat at the table, folding her arms across her chest. The toast sprung up in the toaster, and Imogen shuffled the scrambled eggs onto a plate. She added the toast next to it, grabbing the butter and a jar of jam before moving them in front of the eldritch being. 

If he had any complaints, he did not show it. He demolished the food and now that the coffee was cooler, he downed that too. It would do for now. Imogen moved to wash the dishes from her and Cirre’s earlier breakfast, glancing over her shoulder off and on to check on Mora. The sharpness of hunger faded, and his headache died down a bit. It was enough to think a bit clearer now.

First things were first. He took the time to observe what had become of  _ himself.  _ Humanoid. Hands, feet. A normal, standard human or mer body. Dusky skin, long black hair. He wondered why that had been his choice, but he didn’t have any complaints. Idly he observed his nails, before glancing around the room again. Time had passed. Why had he awoken so suddenly  here? It was Nirn; he was sure of that, but it had  _ changed.  _ Not just the simple surface things, but the very core of Nirn was not what he recalled. 

Oblivion. Oblivion was gone. The thought made a frown tug at the corner of his lips.  _ Aetherius  _ was gone. Inexplicably, the outer realms had collapsed. The tides of fate had not shown that. Those half smart enough to had left their realms and surrendered themselves to the foreign land of Nirn to survive. That was why he was there. That was why he had a  _ body.  _ No doubt he had put himself in stasis shortly after taking on the form, and these two mortals had stumbled across him. Had they woken him up on purpose or on accident? Accident, surely. The two seemed too inexperienced and confused as to what he was or what to do. Which brought him to the world around him.

He took a moment to really  _ observe  _ the room he sat in. It was stiffer than the world he remembered. Weirdly uniform. Not handmade, certainly not. Light came from orbs that hummed with  _ electricity _ . Lights blinked and flickered on strange boxes. Water poured from a pipe. He could smell the gas from the device the breton had used to cook him food. There was no fire. The sound of something turning on caused him to shift his gaze to the furnace on the wall. It produced warm air. There were loud noises outside. From the window he could make out housing, large housing. Things that moved quickly, like what he had been put in the previous night. Music played somewhere softly from another building next to theirs. Magic felt disturbingly absent. It was still there, but it was far fainter and weaker than it used to be.

Hermaeus straightened himself out, looking between Imogen and Cirre. “We are in Skyrim, no…?”

Cirre nodded. “Yeah, you have that much right,” she mused. “You must have been stuck down there for awhile.”

Down there. That was right, his  _ books.  _ He felt his heart lurch slightly. “What has become of my collection? Did you  _ damage  _ it?”

Imogen turned the water off, grabbing a plate to dry it with a dishtowel. She shook her head. “The books? No, we didn’t touch them. We left them alone where we found you,” she said.

He felt a little relieved. He did not really know where he had been found, or where that was in comparison to where they currently where, but from the looks and sounds of it he did not have much to worry about as far as trespassers were concerned. He visibly relaxed at this news. 

Dishes cleaned, Imogen moved to sit down in her spot across the table from Mora. She glanced down awkwardly, before holding out a hand. “Uhm, my name is Imogen. Imogen Welch.”

Hermaeus looked at her hand and didn’t move. Imogen pursed her lips, swallowing hard before moving to pull her hand back. He reached out though, taking her hand and pulling it closer. He observed her hand for a moment, before letting it go.

Cirre didn’t bother offering her hand. “And my name is Cirre Stauss.”

The Daedra eyed them, but made no reply right away. His fingers idly fumbled with the fork he had been given, eyeing his reflection in it for a moment. “I must question what you…  _ intended…  _ when you woke me up…” he said finally. 

Cirre looked to Imogen. Imogen scratched the back of her head. “We weren’t… really  _ meaning  _ to wake you up, sir. Uhm,” she fiddled with a lock of hair, “you see, we’re uh… really interested in legends and mythology. So we found some pointers on a weird event that occurred a long while back and I managed to triangulate where it had  _ landed _ , and we ended up coming across you.”

Myths and legends. Hermaeus grunted, setting the fork back down in mild distaste. “So… that is what we’ve been forgotten to…” he mused, leaning back in the chair. He reached his hands back, pulling his long hair out of his face before carefully fumbling to tie it back with another long strand. “ _ Pitiful.”  _

Imogen swallowed. “W-well, i’m sure people would be amazed to find out you aren’t actually that. Cirre and I run a blog online about this kind of stuff-”

Hermaeus Mora shot her a glance, eyebrow raised. “Those.. Are not terms I’m familiar with. Please,  _ elaborate. _ ”

Oh. Imogen felt stupid. “Uh, a blog is like… a book people can read anywhere, thanks to the internet. Which is like… a big world wide web of information anyone can access.”

The frog-like eyes of the prince seemed to light up a bit at that, before darkening again. “So you plan on sharing your finding with the  _ world? _ ” He questioned.

Imogen nodded. “That was the plan. We had the whole thing recorded and everything-”

“I forbid it.”

Imogen blinked. “Come again…?”

Mora didn’t manage to tuck back all of the curly hair, but he got enough that only a few strands now bounced in front of his face. “Don’t act…  _ daft.  _ You heard me perfectly well. I  _ forbid  _ it.”

Imogen looked to Cirre. Cirre frowned, raising a hand. “Why?”

He smoothly threw her a look like he was  _ disappointed  _ in her. “You fail to consider that, perhaps, I do not wish for my wearabouts to be  _ known. _ ”

The breton grimaced slightly. “I thought that was the sort of thing your kind liked-”

He felt his headache start to creep back. Had mortals gotten  _ dumber  _ or was he just  _ cranky?  _ He moved to rub his temples again, letting out a very obvious sigh of irritation. “There is much I don’t  _ know  _ about this… new  _ Nirn  _ yet. I have no  _ desire  _ to draw  _ unwanted _ attention to myself from possible…  _ rivals. _ ” He had no idea what the other princes were up to, how many survived, where the other gods might be, and how frail his body was yet. He was not eager to attract the attention of someone like Molag Bal while he was still  _ fragile.  _ He rubbed his eyes again, before surveying the two mortals.

Imogen sighed, before nodding. “Alright, we won’t then. I’m not erasing those recordings though.”

“Did I  _ ask  _ you to?” Hermaues grumbled.

Cirre got up from the table with a roll of her eyes. “No, but you’re really being snappy with us.”

The prince really had the urge to hit the woman into a wall, but the mental effort to summon up a tentacle was not there right now. He pushed himself back in the chair instead, getting up very slowly. “I require time to… catch… up, as you say it,” he said curtly.

Cirre glanced at him, before looking to Imogen. “Well you’re not doing it in a bedsheet.” She walked to grab her bag, digging through it for her keys. “You got this?” Cirre said with a sigh.

Imogen snorted. “I thought you weren’t going to leave me,” she mused.

Cirre rolled her eyes again. “No more naked strangers,” she replied, before turning to the door. “I’ll be back in a bit. If you need anything Imogen, don’t hesitate to call me alright?” 

Imogen nodded. “I know.”

The elf eyed the daedra that had turned his attention to the kitchen appliances, before heading out the door.


End file.
